


The One Where They Aren't Saved At Dawn

by dragonyfox



Series: The Chronicles of the Wendigo Kids [1]
Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Multi, Polyamory, blatant cannibalism, literally they are becoming half wendigoes, romance is kind of a side thing, survival is more important than kissing and banging, the working title for this fic is 'wendihoes', this is my fucked up version of a fix it, yes i am ignoring some canon facts but i do not give a fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 14:04:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4879666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonyfox/pseuds/dragonyfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They had really thought they were going to get out. They really did. It was finally dawn, though light hadn’t fallen on the ground just yet. The Helicopter was landed, and there were Rescue Crew people milling about, inspecting everyone’s wounds and trying to patch up what they could.</p><p>And then another fucking wendigo appeared.</p><p>Edit: I just got a killer review so I'm gonna edit this and finish the last chapter of Squad X-W!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They had really thought they were going to get out. They really did. It was finally dawn, though light hadn’t fallen on the ground just yet. The Helicopter was landed, and there were Rescue Crew people milling about, inspecting everyone’s wounds and trying to patch up what they could.

And then another fucking wendigo appeared.

Everyone froze, even the four adult Rescue Workers.

“What is that?” one whispered.

“Wendigo,” Emily breathed, “nobody move. It can’t see movement.”

The wendigo screeched, making one of the rescue workers swear, and throw the first aid kit they were holding to the ground in surprise. The wendigo’s attention snapped to them, and it leapt at the worker.

The worker’s limbs flew in three directions, one striking another worker, knocking them to the ground. Blood spattered the scorched ground and what little snow was left after the explosion.

“What the fuck!?” the last aid worker whispered, horrified. They were shaking violently and couldn’t seem to stop.

“Hold yourself together,” Mike hissed.

A second Wendigo jumped into the yard.

“I think I pissed them off by blowing up their friends,” Sam muttered.

The pilot started the helicopter, and the rotor blades started spinning slowly. The second wendigo looked at the helicopter, and seemed to decide that it was moving fast enough to be prey.

The teens and the two rescue crew left alive watched in horror as the helicopter was torn to pieces by an increasingly angry wendigo that didn’t seem to understand that its prey was not made of flesh. The pilot screamed, and, unfortunately for them, the Wendigo noticed. Glass shattered, and more blood spilled.

Sunlight finally hit the ground, making the two wendigoes whine and leap away.

Nobody moved for a long moment. They merely watched the sunlight spread across the bloodied ground, and glinted off of the destroyed helicopter in silence.

“Well,” Emily said shakily, and strode toward the larger chunk of the helicopter, “let’s see if the radio is still intact. We might be able to call up another crew if it is, but…”

“That wendigo fucked up the copter pretty bad, I don’t think it’s gonna be functional,” Mike warned from across the yard, having finally fallen to the ground on his ass in exhaustion.

The two remaining aid workers said nothing as the teenagers went about their business.

“Fuck!” Emily shouted, “The wendigo busted it! The whole dash is shredded! We’re fucking stranded, again!”

“Please, can we stop shouting?” Matt said, “We’re all exhausted and hurt. Let’s just find something to eat, and find somewhere to sleep while it’s still safe?”

“I second that!” Chris agreed, “The cabin might be alright. Bet we can start a fire, too. I may not have been a boy scout, but I can certainly make a fire.”

Mike snorted. “Chris, the last time you made a fire, it was on that camping trip three years ago and you nearly started a forest fire. _I’ll_ take care of the fire.  You and Ashley should rummage through what’s left of the house and see if you can’t find any food.”

“I’m sure J-Josh stocked it before we came,” Ashley said, “remember we were supposed to be here for the whole weekend. Let’s go, Chris.”

Sam picked up Jess, and the two of them hobbled to the cabin together under the shock blanket the Rescue Workers had given them after they admitted to having been in water during the night.

Mike wore his blanket over his shoulders, and led the way to the cabin.

Matt prodded the Rescue Workers tiredly. “c’mon. Are you gonna go to the cabin, or help Ash and Chris?”

One continued staring at the wendigoes’ leftovers. “What the fuck just happened? What were those things? How were you lot so calm about our coworkers being torn to bits!?”

Matt stared at them blankly for a moment. “I’m sorry, did you two just completely forget we’ve been here for hours and have been chased all over by those things?”

“I-“

“Shut up, Baker,” the second replied, “I know you think that just because you’re the oldest crew member, you’ve seen everything, but you’re clearly wrong. Listen to the kids for once.”

“Fuck you, Jackson!”

Matt sighed, and left the two adults to bicker.

 

Chris and Ashley arrived in the cabin with just a small handful of edible foods.

“The fridge and the freezer are intact. Looks like,” he swallowed, and continued, “J-Josh was expecting to do a barbeque at some point this weekend, but I’m not sure how comfortable any of us are eating meat right now.”

“Look, the higher ups are going to come looking for us,” Jackson told them, “so don’t worry. It’s all gonna be fine.”

“Jackson, don’t lie to them,” Baker snapped, “There’s only two helicopters. One just got destroyed, and the other is out of commission because the engine is dead. It’s going to take at least three days for anyone to get up here in the jeeps, and by then we’re all going to be dead!”

“No, we won’t be,” Mike assured them, “we’re all together, so we’re going to hole up right here and reinforce the windows and doors, and we’re going to wait this whole night out. We know what’s out there, we know how to avoid them, and we have about a week’s supply of food.”

“I’m going to sick up if there’s any pork in the freezer,” Sam declared. “I once heard-“

“Don’t finish that statement if you want the rest of us to be able to eat,” Jess said weakly. “God knows I’ve lost enough blood that I’ll need the protein, and I really don’t want to hear what you’re about to say.”

The subject was dropped, and the food was quickly divided up and passed around.

“Let’s eat sparingly,” Emily said, “just in case it takes longer than three days for whoever else is gonna come to get us to get here. I do _not_ want to become like- like Hannah.”

Matt groaned. “Ugh, seconded.”

“Wait, what?” Baker asked.

The teens exchanged looks.

“Those things are called wendigoes,” Ashley said slowly, “There was a curse places on this mountain, that whenever people turn to cannibalism here, they’re possessed by a spirit of a wendigo, and will transform into those monsters.”

“Turn to…?”

“That’s disgusting!”

Nobody dignified their reactions with a response.

“Alright, I’m half dead and probably have hypothermia, so I’m going to sleep now,” Jess declared tiredly. “Anyone is welcome to puppy pile with me. The more people, the warmer it’ll be.”

“I’m going to stay awake in case the wendigoes aren’t as nocturnal as that guy said they were,” Emily announced, and settled herself in an old, beaten lawn chair.

“We’re going to keep watch as well,” Jackson said, “to keep an eye on you lot and make sure you don’t all die in your sleep.”

“Comforting,” Chris chirped, “super comforting.”

Ashley smacked his chest gently. “Shut up and sleep, Chris.”

 

Three days passed.

Three days of quiet sleep and fetching food that nobody really wanted to eat from the fridge in the ruined lodge and worrying. Three nights of being as still and quiet as they could, and praying that the wendigoes wouldn’t investigate the cabin.

“They should be here sometime today,” Jackson said, on the fourth day.

“Fuck off, Jackson, they should have been here already,” Baker snapped, and stood. “I’m going to go look. It’s still daylight, those creepy fuckers shouldn’t be out and about. I’ll probably be back by dark. If I’m not, I’m dead. Don’t come looking for me.”

Jackson stood as well. “You may be an asshole, but you’re not leaving alone. I’m coming with you.”

Baker shrugged. “Your funeral.”

Matt, who was taking his turn on watch, protested, “You should just stay here. Maybe they just ran into technical troubles. If the wendigoes did get them, they’re already dead.”

Baker shrugged again, grimacing. “If they’re dead, we can use their radio. If they’ve just ran into trouble, we can tell them where you lot are. We should be fine.”

The duo left.

It was only when Sam woke briefly, and asked where they went that Matt realize he should have warned them about the mines.

“They’re fucked,” Sam replied tiredly.

“I suppose we’re all a little fucked now,” Matt said to the air, “I feel bad for not feeling bad.”

Sam sighed. “Don’t be. We’re hurt and tired, and we lost another friend in the same damned place we lost two last year. I think we’re allowed to be a little callous, you know?”

She sat up all the way. “I’ll keep watch with you. If they don’t come back by nightfall, we’ll need to have two people keeping watch during the day from now on.”

“Yeah,” Matt agreed.

 

Jackson and Baker didn’t return.

“Should we go look for them?” Chris asked.

“Nobody else is leaving!” Mike snapped. “They were stupid enough to leave after what they saw, fine. We know better. We already lost Josh, as fucked in the head as he was, and we’re not losing anyone else.”

Nobody argued.

 

Mike had the only functioning phone, and he managed to track the days for another week until it ran out of juice. They decided to carve the days onto the back of his phone from then on.

Nobody came for them.

Their food supply was dwindling, but Jess’s bruises were finally starting to heal up, and everyone’s cuts had stopped bleeding. Mike still had to be gentle with his finger stumps, and Jess’ chest was still prone to leaving spots on the underside of her new shirt, though.

Chris gestured to the two pork steaks on the fire. “This is the last of the meat in the fridge. There’s a couple of freezer dinners left, and then we’re out of food. It’s a pity the lodge is gone, cause Josh told me he had the pantry stuffed to the brim with tasty shit.”

“We could try hunting,” Mike suggested. “I’ve done it before.”

“Once, with your weirdo redneck uncle,” Emily replied, rolling her eyes, “and you couldn’t eat the deer you killed anyway.”

“That was when I was thirteen!” he protested.

“No bickering,” Matt and Jess chorused.

Mike and Emily quieted.

“We could try to find a way down the mountain,” Ashley offered, “didn’t you get the cable car key from Josh, Mike?”

“Yeah, I did,” Mike answered, “but we’ll still need to feed ourselves for tomorrow at least. I took the one that was by the door earlier but there’s another gun here somewhere, I think. Sam, help me look for it?”

Mike and Sam wandered into the cabin to search.

“We’re all going to die,” Emily moaned.

“We’re not,” Jess disagreed. “We’re going to be careful, we’re going to do this during the day, we’re going to move slowly and freeze whenever we see one of those freaky things. We’re going to make it.”

It took Mike and Sam all day to find the gun and ammunition for it, so they all voted to wait until the next day to move.

 

They tried to move as quickly as they could. But Chris’ ankle was still injured, and Jess was sore all over even after a week and a half of healing, so the quickest they could move was half the pace anyone would have liked it to be.

Twenty minutes from the cabin a bush rustled ominously.

Mike swung the barrel of the rifle at the bush, ready to pull the trigger if it was a wendigo, when a white snout appeared from the bush.

Mike lowered the rifle immediately. “Wolfie? Bud, is that you?”

The wolf slunk out of the bush.

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Mike said, relieved, and fell to his knees to beckon the wolf to him, “it’s just you and not a fucking wendigo.”

“Michael, that is a fucking wolf,” Emily pointed out, shuffling behind Matt.

“Yeah, he’s cool though,” Mike replied, scratching the wolf’s head. “He helped me out in the sanatorium. He can hear wendigoes. He’s going to stick with us, right Wolfie?”

The wolf snuffled Mike’s shoulder, and went to the front of their group.

“Can you take us to the cable car station, bud?” Mike asked the wolf.

He woofed softly, and trotted to lead the way.

“Dude, you know that’s a wolf, right? He doesn’t know what you’re saying,” Sam pointed out. “How’s he supposed to lead us to the cable car if he doesn’t even know what a cable car is?”

“Hush,” Mike ordered with a falsely haughty tone, “Don’t question Wolfie’s intelligence.”

The wolf led them in the right direction, much to everyone but Mike’s surprise. Unfortunately, the right direction led directly over the mines.

“I think we’re going to have to pass over or through the mines to get to the cable car,” Matt pointed out reluctantly.

Jess and Emily groaned.

“Over, definitely over,” Matt insisted.

So they went over gingerly, still following the wolf.


	2. Chapter 2

 As they passed over the mines, Chris heard something completely unexpected.

“Guys, hush,” he hissed, and knelt down.

Faintly, he heard someone crying underneath them. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, Hannah, I’m so sorry, I can't, I'm sorry.”

“No way,” Sam breathed.

“Josh, buddy?” Chris called between a pair of boards. “Is that you?”

“Are you trying to get us killed?” Mike hissed.

Chris gave him a withering glare. “You’re the one who said he was dead!”

“I said he got taken!”

“You fucking implied it you bastard!”

“Chris? Is that you?” Josh called. His voice wavered.

Chris turned away from Mike. “Yeah, buddy, it’s me!”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Josh screamed, “you’re not real! Quit taunting me! They left me, they left me, you LEFT ME! They all leave me, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know what I keep doing wrong!”

“No, no, Josh, we thought you were dead!” Chris shouted back, “we’re coming dude, keep talking!”

Josh didn’t reply, screaming, “This isn’t real! This isn’t real!”

Chris started down the stairs, calling out to Josh all the while, “we’re coming, buddy, we’re coming, I promise!”

Sam followed after him, pausing only to see what the rest of their friends would do.

“I can’t go back in there,” Jess said, trembling violently from between Matt and Emily, “I just can’t. I’m sorry, so sorry…”

Jess’s expression softened. “It’s okay. You three were stuck down here the longest. I can understand you wanting to never go down here again.”

She turned to scowl at Mike and Ashley. Ashley whined, but started down the stairs as well. Sam’s Glare was a powerful thing. Few could resist it.

Mike sighed and looked at Wolfie. “I’ll go if you go, bud.”

The wolf huffed, and trotted after Ashley. Mike slumped and sighed in disappointment, but followed after the girls and the wolf.

“We’ll stay here, real still, okay? Don’t die, you hear me?” Emily ordered.

Mike waved behind him without looking.

Sam, Ashley, Mike, and Wolfie caught up with Chris easily.

“Josh!” he called again.

“Please go away, leave me alone…” Josh moaned. His voice was much closer.

Chris sped up. “Keep talking, buddy! Please Josh, we’re close!”

The five of them sped down a corner, and ran into a dead end. Wolfie walked up to the far wall, which was made of wood, and sniffed around.

Chris plastered himself to the wall. “Josh, are you there?”

“Quit taunting me!” Josh shouted.

The volume of Josh’s voice sent Chris reeling- which meant that Josh was on the other side of the wooden wall.

“Quick, help me pry this open,” Chris demanded.

Mike and Sam leapt forward, and together, the three of them tore a board from the wall. Light spilled into the room from the lantern above their heads.

“I can squeeze through,” Ashley gasped, “you three get it open wider while I go make sure Josh knows we’re real, okay?”

“Okay, quick, quick,” Chris said, taking step back to let her through.

She slipped through easily, and rushed in.

When she saw him, she slowed down.

“Hey, Josh?” she said tentatively.

“Leave me ALONE!” he screamed from between his hands.

Ashley crept forward slowly. “Josh, look at me.”

He leaned away from her. “No! You’re not real! You won’t control me! You won’t, you won’t!”

“I don’t want to, Josh,” She told him in a gentle tone, “I don’t want to control you at all, okay? We thought you were dead, and I’m so, so happy to see you alive. I’m just going to touch your shoulder, alright?”

He scrambled back, and in doing so, removed his hands from his face.

Ashley let out a quiet gasp.

His one eye was milky, and half of his face was split in what looked like a Glasgow Smile, and long, sharp teeth protruded from the wound.

“Please, please, please go away…” Josh sobbed, “I’m sorry, I know I fucked up- I’m fucked up, quit taunting me! I know they left without me! You’re not here, you’re gone and you’re safe and you’re kissing Chris and you’re not here!”

“Josh,” Ashley repeated sternly, and touched his shoulder firmly but gently.

He froze, and slowly looked at her face.

“… Ashley?” he asked, his voice hoarse from screaming.

“Yeah, Josh,” She replied softly, and knelt down, “it’s me. I’m really here. Chris, Mike, and Sam are right behind me. They’re opening the passage I came through a little so both you and me can fit through it.”

“You’re real,” Josh breathed, awestruck.

“Yeah, I am.”

He lunged for her, and for a split second she thought he was too far gone and that he was going to eat her and she would be dead- But all he did was wrap his arms around her waist and sob into her stomach, loudly and full of relief, babbling all the while.

She touched his head gently, and then slowly brought her hand away to look at whatever she had touched: her hand was covered in something slick and vaguely sticky, and when it glinted in the sparse light, it shone red.

Mike, Sam, and Chris finally pried off another two boards, and slipped in after her.

They found Ashley awkwardly patting Josh’s back with her off hand- the other was being held in the air far away from her body.

‘Blood,’ she mouthed, waving her hand and pointing to his head.

Chris approached slowly. “Hey, Josh, are you okay?”

“About as okay as a rat in a lab,” Josh said, his voice muffled by Sam’s jacket. “Are you- Ashley said you were but- are you real?”

“We’re real, man,” Mike assured him, glancing between Chris and Sam in confusion.

‘His face,’ Ashley mouthed, looking concerned.

Chris swallowed nervously, and touched Josh’s shoulder without Ashley’s prompting. “Buddy, can you look at me? Please? I need to know you’re not hurt, okay? You scared the shit outta me once already, you know?”

Josh shook his head. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“I know, dude. You weren’t in your right mind,” Chris assured him. “I don’t blame you for what happened, alright? I don’t.”

“You will, you’ll hate me,” Josh insisted.

“No, Josh, we won’t,” Sam disagreed. “You’ve been here, alone, starving for over a week. We’re not going to blame you for anything that happened, right boys?”

She glared directly at Mike.

“Right, of course,” Mike agreed slowly, clearly hoping he wouldn’t be proven wrong.

Josh lifted his face from Ashley’s stomach.

Chris sucked in a breath.

“See?” Josh said bitterly, “you hate me, you hate me, I’m sorry, I was just so hungry I couldn’t- I couldn’t help-!”

 “No, no, it’s okay, I don’t blame you,” Chris said, going to his knees and placing his other hand on Josh’s other shoulder, “I was just surprised to see your ugly mug looking prettier than usual.”

“Chris!” Sam scolded.

Chris ignored her.

Josh let out a wet laugh. “Cochise, you’re fucking ridiculous. Only you would joke about this. You have to be real. Fake-you is shit at jokes.”

“And only you would laugh at my bad jokes about this,” Chris replied thickly, “C’mon, up you get. We’re gonna get outta here.”

Josh allowed Chris to drag him to his feet.

“You two are both fucked in the head, man,” Mike grumbled.

“And you’re apparently a wolf-whisperer,” Sam replied, “leave them alone.”

As if on cue, Wolfie growled, and the fur on his neck stood up.

“Freeze!” Mike hissed.

Everyone froze.

“It’s Hannah,” Josh whispered, “its Hannah, she’s been bringing me- bringing me- oh fuck, guys, get out, get out, get out, leave me here! She’s going to be mad, so mad!”

“Shut up, we’re not leaving you,” Chris snapped, “now shut up and stay still. She won’t see us if we stay still.”

Josh whimpered one last time, and stilled against Chris’ side.

A wendigo leapt down from a dark hole, and skittered around the walls, looking for something- someone. Josh. She screeched, sounding angrier than any wendigo they had heard yet.

 Josh whined silently.

After a short pause, Wendigo-Hannah finally leapt back up the tunnel she came from, probably to look for Josh. Thankfully for him, he was relatively safe in Chris’ arms.

Wolfie relaxed, and led the way out again.

“Let’s go before she comes back,” Mike said, following after him.

Chris slung Josh’s arm over his shoulder and half-carried him out of the mines. Sam and Ashley ran ahead to warn Emily, Matt, and Jess to not freak out.

When Josh, Chris, and Mike reached the surface, Josh sobbed, slipped from Chris’ grip, and started kissing the ground.

“I am- so happy- to be out- of that fucking- mine!” he cried, “thank you for coming for me, I didn’t deserve it but you did it anyway, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Jesus, he really did-“

“Emily!”

“What? I’m just saying! I wouldn’t have lasted any longer, I’m sure!”

“Please, no arguing,” Jess said, exasperation coloring her voice.

“God, you’re all okay, I’m so happy you’re all okay,” Josh said, “I mean, relatively okay. You’re all alive and not- and not like- like- Wait, are you all real?”

Chris shushed him gently, and picked him up again, “Everyone’s real- unless you’re seeing Beth, then she’s not real- and everyone’s mostly okay.”

Jess groaned. “C’mon, it’s a little later than I’d like. We’d better get to the cable car station and hole up there until morning. Unless we want to risk the noise and movement of the cable car catching the attention of a wendigo?”

The rest of the group glanced at each other.

“Let’s hole up. That sounds good,” Matt said, trying very hard to look at Josh without staring impolitely.

“Alright, lead the way, Wolfie,” Mike said.

“You weren’t kidding when you said he was the wolf-whisperer,” Josh said to Sam.

She chuckled. “I know, right? Of all our friends to make friends with a wolf…”

“Laugh it up, you two,” Mike called over his shoulder, “but Wolfie’s still my buddy, isn’t he?”

Wolfie barked.

“That’s right, you are!”

Josh giggled. It was a half-desperate sound.

His mood turned quickly. “Beth, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I looked for you, I did!”

“Beth is gone, Josh,” Chris said automatically.

Emily, Matt, and Sam gave him odd looks for his immediate response.

“But she’s- yeah, yeah she is. Sorry Cochise, I just- well, you know. Sorry.”

Chris nodded. “I know, bro, I know. It’s cause you’re off your meds. Remember that time in seventh grade when your shrink wanted to change your meds but they took a while to kick in cause you were used to your old meds?”

“Yeah, and I glued myself to your hip because you could tell what was and wasn’t real? We’re gonna do that again?”

“We’re gonna do that again,” Chris confirmed. “Just so you know, the wolf is real, and Jess, Mike, Matt, Emily, Sam, and Ashley are real too.”

Josh nodded tiredly. “Okay, thanks buddy.”

They made it to the cable car station, and quickly moved to board it up.

Emily and Matt screamed from the back room.

“Oh fuck!”

“Jesus Christ!”

“What? What happened?” Sam shouted, and burst into the back room with the rest of their friends right behind her.

The large window was shattered, and the bodies of Jackson and Baker were half-mauled on the floor, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Chris clutched his chest and bent over. “Dude, don’t do that shit. You damn near gave me a heart attack. I didn’t survive out here for the past week and a half to die of a heart attack because you saw a dead body.”

“I wasn’t expecting it!” Emily defended.

“Her screaming scared me,” Matt added, “sorry. But hey, at least we know they didn't fall into the mines.”

The rest of the night passed quietly.


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

 

In the morning, after everyone had eaten the very last of the food they had, Mike put the key in the engine, and tried to start it. It revved, grinding and whirring, but didn’t start.

Mike stared at the control center. “Fuck. No.”

“Chris, bro, tell me that was a hallucination.”

“You want me to lie, or…?”

The engine was broken. It looked like the wendigo that had gotten Baker and Jackson had gotten pissed off at the noise it was making, and clawed it up. None of them knew how to repair any sort of engine.

“This is unreal,” Emily said, I told you we’re all going to die here, I told you!”

Matt put his arm around her shoulder.

“We’re not going to die!” Jess insisted once more, “Mike, you’ll have to go hunting today, and we’ll have to start planning a way down the mountain without the cable car.”

Mike picked up his gun, and looked at his wolf. “You coming, Wolfie?”

Wolfie laid down and put his head on his paws.

Mike shrugged. “I guess not. Anyone want to come along? I’d really like to not be alone, you know? Safety in numbers. Plus, I’m not certain I can drag a deer corpse back alone.”

Sam stood. “I’ll come. The rest of you, get some rest.”

Matt locked the door after them, and the rest formed a puppy pile as they had every day for the past week and a half.

Chis waved at Josh from his spot against Ashley. “c’mon. Join the puppy pile. Even the wolf is cuddly, see?”

Wolfie was indeed lying across Jess’ legs.

Josh hesitated, and tried to joke, “this- this is a real thing you guys have been doing? What happened to Emily being frigid and not liking being touched by hardly anyone?”

“It’s frigid enough without sharing body heat,” she snapped, “obviously, I got over it.”

Josh hunched over. “Sorry, sorry, I wasn’t thinking-“

Emily sighed. “It’s fine. You’re still crazy. Shut up and join the pile.”

“The puppy pile,” Jess corrected.

“The puppy pile,” Emily conceded.

Chris waved for Josh to curl up against him again.

Josh wavered. “Are you sure? I mean- you trust me?”

“Honestly, not really,” Jess said, “but you’re our friend, and you were bonkers. Are bonkers? So you get a little leniency. Get in the puppy pile before we all freeze.”

Josh gingerly laid down next to Chris, making sure not to touch.

“Oh, bro, no, c’mon,” Chris grumbled, and pulled Josh close to his chest, “Jesus, you’re cold. Switch me spots. Ashley, we gotta warm him up.”

Josh was shuffled to in-between Chris and Ashley with little ceremony.

“Yikes, Josh!” Ashley yelped.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t apologize, bro, it’s not your fault,” Chris assured him, “We’ve got you.”

Ashley hummed an agreement.

Emily made a fake gagging noise. “Do you three need a room?”

“We’re not-“ Chris started, defensively, only to be cut off by Ashley;

“Do you really want us to leave just because we’re being friendly with our friend? No? Shut up, then. Josh needs this, and none of you seem terribly willing to do this.”

Matt and Emily shifted uncomfortably.

“You’re right,” Jess agreed. “So everyone else shut up and go to sleep already.” 

Slowly, Josh relaxed between Ashley and Chris. At some point, Ashley’s fingers wound between his, and his forehead ended up against Chris’ chest. It was the warmest he’d been in months.

 

Sam and Mike returned just before nightfall empty-handed.

“What the hell, guys?” Matt demanded, “I thought you said you’d been hunting before!”

“Once, when I was thirteen,” Mike bit out, “And besides, it wasn’t a matter of not being able to catch anything, it was a matter of there’s nothing to catch in the first place.”

Sam frowned at them both. “I think the explosion scared off everything within half a mile. We didn’t even see any birds or rabbits, or we’d have brought those back.”

The eight of them sat in silence for a while.

“That was a week and a half ago, though!” Emily protested, “surely they should be coming back by now?”

“Unless the wendigoes are eating them since there’s no humans around,” Matt pointed out.

“Well, either way, we’ll have to suffer quietly,” Chris said, “Unless anyone else is willing to become half a wendigo, cause then there’s-“

“Chris,” Sam scolded.

“Sorry. Still true, though.”

Emily rubbed her forehead. “Look, nobody is eating Baker and Jackson. I’d eat the wolf first.”

Wolfie picked his head up and growled.

“Whoa,” Mike said, stepping between her and the wolf, “nobody is eating my wolf. The wolf is strictly off limits. I will literally fight anyone who wants to eat the wolf.”

“Nobody is going to eat Wolfie,” Jess said loudly, “and nobody is going to eat the rescue workers in the back room! At least- not yet, alright? Maybe it’s just taking the animals that live here a while to return. Mike, Sam, you two keep hunting for a few days, and then we’ll come back to this conversation, okay?”

“Yeah, okay, you’re leader now,” Mike said, “because you’re the only one of us capable of making any damn sense right now.”

She bowed shallowly from her seated position. “I live to serve.”

“Oh, yeah, Michael, make your girlfriend leader, that’s right,” Emily said, scowling and crossing her arms over her chest.

Mike groaned.

“Let’s take a vote,” Ashley offered. “Those in favor of Jess as leader?”

Mike, Sam, Matt, Chris, and Ashley raised their hands.

“Majority rule. Jess is leader,” Ashley announced.

Emily harrumphed, but said nothing else.

 

Two weeks turned into two and a half weeks.

“There’s nothing here,” Mike said upon his and Sam’s return on the fourth day of occupying the station, “and I don’t think I can go out again. I didn’t realize how many calories walking around took, and we haven’t eaten anything in at least four days.”

Josh glanced at the back room.

Chris noticed, and spoke up, “well, much as I hate to be the one to make things weird-“

His friends protested that statement:

“No you don’t.”

“Don’t lie, Chris, you love making things weird.”

“Ahahahahaha!”

Chris rolled his eyes. “Ha, ha, yes, okay, I like making bad jokes. This one isn’t a bad joke. There’s still Baker and Jackson in the back room.”

Silence fell.

Mike was the first to recover his voice. “I really, really do not want to become one of those things.”

“Don’t eat a lot,” Josh said quietly. “The less you eat at once, the slower the transformation. At least, that’s how I think it works.”

Ashley swallowed nervously. “How- how much...?”

Josh shrugged. “Not a lot. Hannah only brought me a leg and a head, and I tried to not eat the leg for a while, until she got angry and shoved the thigh piece by piece into my mouth. I never ate the head! I couldn't, I just- I couldn't-”

There had been a femur, a tibia, and a fibula next to him when they found him in the mine.

“That’s all you have to eat to become-?" Mike waved his hand at Josh.

Josh shrugged nervously and shrank into Chris’ side, covering his face with a hand.

"Do you… Josh, do you feel stronger than you were before?" Ashely asked softly.

He shrugged again.

Ashley stood, and dragged him up with her. "Pick me up."

"What?"

She placed his hands on her hips. "Pick me up. Or try to."

Josh gave Chris a fearful glance.

Chris waved at him to do what she said.

So he did.

"Whoa!" Ashley yelped as she was lifted a foot off of the ground, "Jesus, Josh, you could barely lift me before!"

He set her down gently.

She patted his shoulder.

"Alright then," Mike said shakily, "are we- are we really doing this?"

"I'm not!" Emily declared. "And you're all disgusting for considering it!"

"I will," Jess said, "I don't want to, but I feel like death. Anything would be better than this."

"This is a terrible idea," Matt warned.

"You have any better ideas?" Chris asked him tiredly. "Death from starvation sounds awful."

"We can last a lot longer than four days! Most people can last forty days or more!" Emily protested. "Hell, some make it to seventy something!"

"And how many of those days are we going to be useless? How many of us are pretty severely injured still? How long will Jess last without food?" Mike demanded. "At least if some of us are- are half monster we'll be able to run for help! You want to sit here and wait, you do that! But I'm not!"

"Your wolf won't like you if you're a wendigo," Matt said quietly.

Mie snorted and pointed to Josh, "he's fine with our current half-wendigo mad man, isn't he?"

Wolfie was sitting at Josh's feet, and allowing Josh to scratch his ears. Josh looked up fearfully when he realized everyone was looking at him.

"Alright!" Jess shouted, "Look, bickering is just wasting energy. Let's do this one at a time, alright? Josh isn't allowed to eat any of Baker or Jackson because he's already probably eaten too much. If you don’t want to, you won’t have to."

"I'll- I'll go first," Mike offered, looking Jess in the eye.

She met his gaze, and nodded.

 

"I feel sick," Mike said upon his return from the back room. "I cannot believe I just did that. I'm going to hell for this, I know it."

Josh hummed in agreement. "It’s in your head, dude. Promise."

"Convert to Catholicism and tell your priest. He'll assign you a hundred Hail Mary's and a couple prayers, and you'll be fine," Chris joked, "at least, I think that’s how that works."

"That was disgusting," Mike continued, ignoring him, "and tasted vaguely like pork. I'll never be able to eat ham again."

Sam snorted, which soon turned into full belly laughter. The rest of them stared at her in shock until she calmed back down.

"I was- remember when I said-" she gasped, "remember when I said I'd sick up if I had to eat pork back when you found the freezer?"

Chris answered warily, "vaguely…"

Still giggling, she continued, "and then Jess yelled at me to shut up, because I was about to gross you all out?"

"Yeah?"

"That’s because- because I'd heard that people tasted like pork!"

Chris screwed his face up. "Great. You just ruined bacon."

"My face hurts," Mike said, touching his face with a wild look in his eyes, "is my face splitting? What's going on?"

Chris and Jess peeled his hand back from his face.

"Dude, chill, you don't look like the Joker yet," Chris told him gently, "how much- how much did you…?"

Mike shuddered. "I could only get a few slices off of Baker's leg before I got grossed out."

"Not enough," Josh muttered, "not enough, won't be a comic book villain, but I am. I ate too much, too much-!"

Chris turned from Mike and back to his best friend's side. "Hey, shh, it’s okay, it's alright. I got you. You're not gonna be evil when you have me glued to your side, buddy."

"Okay, okay," Josh mumbled, clinging to Chris’ jacket.

They all quieted down after that, both because they were all a little sickened, and because night had fallen and they didn't want their noise to attract the wendigoes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jesus christ guys, i posted this last night and it blew up! i'm glad you're all enjoying it, honestly, and i hope you continue to enjoy where i'm going to take it!
> 
> if you like, you can follow me on tumblr at queenwendigo.tumblr.com


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, Mike insisted he felt well enough to try hunting again.

"Seriously guys," he said, "I'm gonna say it’s either the placebo effect, or- or it really helped. No, Sam, you stay here. I'll go out alone. I'll be back in the afternoon, okay?"

When he left, Josh chuckled. "Placebo effect. He wishes."

"Josh, how do you know that?" Emily asked, dread in her voice.

Josh looked at her. His gaze was eerie, since one eye was his normal dark brown, and the other was a milky white that he couldn't see much out of at all, except movement.

"Hannah said."

His friends’ reactions to that were mildly explosive, and Josh immediately flinched back and covered his head with his arms.

"Hannah?"

"Hannah said that?"

"What the fuck!?"

"Jesus Christ!"

Chris waved wildly. "Shut up! Let him explain!"

Josh swallowed, and watched his friends warily, waiting for violence.

"It’s okay, Josh," Ashley said, "no matter what you say, me and Chris are gonna protect you, okay?"

"Okay, okay," he said, and then began his explanation, "Hannah, or- or whatever that thing that possessed her and turned her into that thing was- kept telling me to eat. She- it wanted me to eat a whole body, said that I'd be her brother again if I did. And I wanted to be her family again, I did! I did, but- but I couldn't- she brought me a head after the leg and I couldn't-"

"Shh, shh," Chris said, hugging him gently, "it’s okay. Are you saying that it spoke to you?"

Josh nodded. "Only after I ate some, though. Before I could tell it was a hallucination. After, I could tell it wasn't, cause she was always touching me, and she wasn't talking before I- before I-"

"Okay, so wait," Jess interrupted, "how did your hallucinations work before?"

"Visual and Auditory only," Chris answered.

"Doc Hill said it happens sometimes. Said it was easy to work with and that I was lucky," Josh added. "Chris is the best of best friends, okay, guys? Seriously, he saved my life at least twice in seventh grade."

"What happened?" Emily asked.

Josh looked at the ground and nudged Chris.

"You sure?" Chris asked him quietly.

Josh nodded.

Chris shrugged. "He thought he saw Beth run into traffic, but since I could see she was standing right next to Sam, I knew she hadn't, and grabbed his arm before he got ran over by a bus."

"Jesus!" Sam whispered, "I remember that. I'd always wondered why he'd screamed Beth's name and started to run off. I didn't know he almost got ran over!"

Josh curled up tightly against Chris' side.

This time, Chris' explanation was quieter. "The other time he'd thought he was following me, but it turned out he was following a hallucination of me. Fake-me took him into his garage, and said he wanted to go somewhere, so Josh started the car, and then fake-me wouldn't let him leave. If I hadn’t gone looking for Josh after he didn’t come back from the bathroom…”

Jess shuddered. "That’s awful. I guess that’s why you two were always touching that year? And everyone was making fun of you, thinking you were gay. God, I want to fight those bastards now! When we get back home, if I see any of them, I'm going to beat the shit out of them, I swear…"

"I didn't mind. It was better that they thought I was gay than a freak," Josh said quietly.

Chris shrugged. "I didn’t care about those people. Josh’s safety was more important than assholes making fun of us for something that wasn’t true and wasn’t something to be ashamed of even if it was.”

Sam scoffed. "You’re sure it’s not even partially true?”

"I’m not gay,” Chris insisted.

"Yeah, no, I know that,” Sam replied dismissively. “Your crush on Ashley was sincere. But you mooned over every pretty boy in our class, and you weren't exactly subtle."

"What?" Chris exclaimed.

“Don’t play coy,” Sam replied. “I know you had a crush on that weirdo art kid in our freshman drawing class.”

“Shut up!” Chris said, flushed bright red. “I did not!”

Sam laughed. “Oh, yes you did. You were almost as bad for him as you were for Ashley, until he got together with that football jock. God, remember when our problems were as simple as relationship drama, and not trying to avoid getting eaten?”

“God, yeah,” Chris sighed. “I miss that. I never thought I would.”

“you did pine over Ashley for ages though, Cochise," Josh joked, dragging the conversation away from the serious, as he liked to do.

Chris scoffed, following his lead, "Don’t get smug, you only noticed one of my pining crushes."

“What? Who else!?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Bro, I’m your best friend, you can’t do that!”

“Too bad, cause I just did. It’ll give you something to think about instead of the situation.”

“Fuck you, Chris.”

“Love ya too, bro.”

Sam giggled while Emily fake-retched again.

The bickering seemed half-forced and nervous, but it served its purpose: lightening the mood even just a little. It gave the illusion of normalcy, in a perfectly abnormal situation.

 

When Mike returned, he returned triumphant with two rabbits.

“I am victorious! Bow before me, your mighty hunter!” he crowed, hoisting the rabbits by the legs into the air.

“Oh thank god,” Emily cried, “the rest of us don’t have to become part wendigo to survive.”

“Josh gets to eat first. He cannot be allowed to eat Baker and Jackson at all,” Chris demanded, “and then Mike gets second dibs, because A, he caught the damn things, and B, because he also ate part of-?”

“Jackson,” Mike supplied softly.

The two rabbits were quickly cooked, and one was split between Josh and Mike.

“Alright, who gets the other one, then?” Emily demanded.

“It sucks that we don’t have a pot,” Matt complained, “we have enough snow for water- we could have made soup.”

Sam sighed. “I think the more important question is: who is willing to either starve or join Mike and Josh?”

Nobody responded for a long moment.

“I refuse,” Emily said lowly, “to end up looking like Josh. I absolutely refuse, and I’m going to repeat my earlier comment that you are all absolutely disgusting for even considering eating Jackson and Baker. Mike, you especially, because you actually did.”

“Look, princess,” he snarled, “I managed to find food for the first time in five days! And yeah, I feel fucking horrible for- for doing that! But if I hadn’t, these rabbits wouldn’t be here and you’d be starving! Either shut up and put up with it, or starve!”

Emily scowled, and said nothing else.

Jess stood shakily. “Look, nobody has to eat Baker and Jackson if they don’t want to. Emily, you can keep eating whatever we catch, alright? These are small rabbits, so you can have half of this one. Now, like Sam said, who is willing to risk wendigo-ism?”

Nobody spoke for a while.

“Someone else can split the rabbit with Emily,” Sam said, “I won’t go into the back room, though. I’ll just go to sleep hungry.”

Ashley nodded. “I can go hungry too.”

“Jess, you have to eat something,” Mike said, “you’ve lost more blood than the rest of us, and you got beaten up the worst overall. You can’t go hungry another night.”

Jess scowled, but didn’t argue.

“Let’s give Jess the other half of the rabbit,” Matt offered.

The second rabbit was split, and given to Jess and Emily. Emily devoured her half without a second thought, but Jess stared at it for a long while with a guilty expression.

After a minute, she shoved her half into Matt’s hands, and stood. “Think of me what you will, but I’m going into the back room.”

Matt stared after her, gingerly holding the rabbit half.

A realization dawned upon Chris, and he stood as well. “You know what? Me too.”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Josh chanted, desperately grabbing at Chris’ coat and trying to drag him back to the ground by his jacket, “you can’t, Chris, Cochise, please, you can’t!”

Chris slipped out of his jacket, “Josh, it’s going to be okay, dude. Mike’s fine, I’m going to be fine. And since I’m going to be fine, so will you. I promise.”

Ashley hugged Josh, and he immediately turned and started babbling panicked nonsense into her shoulder. She winced- his grip was a little rougher than she’d like, but she could tolerate it.

Mike gave Chris his machete, and Jess and Chris went into the back room.

 

“Oh, god, how are we going to do this?” Chris asked, holding his hand under his nose, “and why couldn’t we smell this in the main room?”

Jess was holding her hand under her nose too. “I don’t know. Um, who did Mike say he started on?”

Chris pointed to Jackson. His pants were cut off, and the exposed skin was covered in frost and nearly as white as snow; except their thigh, where it was a dull, dark red and missing skin altogether.

Jess moaned. “I almost regret volunteering to do this…”

“We have to, though,” Chris replied, “you will probably literally die if you don’t, and I need to show Josh that just because he’s a monster, he’s not a monster, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Jess said softly, “that doesn’t mean I want to eat a human, though.”

“Same. Hey, would a joke make you feel better?”

She gave him a withering glare, but didn’t protest. He took it as an open invitation, and wracked his brain for a good, disgusting joke to make to lighten the situation.

“What do you call two cannibals having oral sex?” he said, unable to stop a grin from crawling across his face.

“Chris, no,” Jess warned, though her tone was lighter than it would have been if she were serious.

“Serious fucking trust!”

She snorted. “That’s awful, Chris.”

He beamed. “I know!”

The mood sufficiently lightened, he hacked through Jackson’s leg and managed to peel off two frozen chunks of meat vaguely shaped like steaks.

As he held them, a thought occurred, “do we, um… do we eat these raw? Or should we make another fire and cook them?”

“Raw meat will make us sick,” Jess said hesitantly, “but Josh didn’t have a fire, and he seems fine.”

“But what if cooking it lessens the impact?”

Jess frowned at the ground, thinking furiously. After a moment, she picked her head back up and stared Chris directly in the eye.

“I’m going to need monster strength to get off of this mountain alive. If eating raw human will give me that, I’ll risk my face splitting open like Josh’s.”

Chris nodded reluctantly, and handed her the larger piece.

 

When Jess and Chris returned to the main room, Josh leapt at Chris, knocking him to the ground, and started checking him over to mutations.

“I’m okay, dude, I promise,” Chris insisted, lying limply under his friend, “it’s alright.”

Jess, meanwhile, was being subjected to a far gentler inspection by Mike and Sam. She was much less submissive about it, however.

“Fuck off,” she snarled, “I’m fine. I don’t feel any different than before except that I’m not so hungry!”

Soon enough, however, night fell once more, and the fussing grew silent. Noise and movement were a wendigo’s best friends, after all.

That night, however, was not as quiet as their nights had been for the past two weeks.

Something landed on the roof of the cable car station with a soft thump.

“It’s her,” Josh whispered, “she’s looking for me, she’s angry that I left, she’s so angry!”

“Shh!” Chris squeezed Josh against his chest, “she’s not going to get you. Especially if you shut up.”

“Sorry. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, just shush.”

A screech echoed through the forest, and all eight of them flinched. The whole building rocked ominously for a long moment, with banging and the unearthly sound of claws on metal and glass echoing after the scream.

Something metal tore- part of the building no doubt- but the wendigo did not appear. They could hear it shuffling around in the back room, and then slurping and crunching.

“Jackson and Baker,” Jess whispered.

Nobody dared move or speak for the rest of the night, even after they heard the wendigo leave several hours later. Nobody dared move until sunlight leaked through the spaces between the boards on the windows.

“We have to move on,” Mike said, “Wolfie can lead us in the right direction. Maybe that guy had safe houses other than the sanatorium?”

“How are we going to protect ourselves at night?” Emily demanded.

Matt nodded. “Yeah, I mean, it’s not like they can’t get in here. We’d need to be able to safely hole up somehow. I would really like to live to see my twenty-first birthday.”

“We can sleep during the day, and just, I dunno, stay really, really still at night,” Ashley suggested.

“And light a big fuckin’ fire,” Chris added.

“That wouldn’t attract them?” Jess asked, “Like, I know they hate it but…”

Ashley shook her head. “That guy’s journal said they avoid it like the plague. If we light a fire, they’ll avoid us. If we stay still, they won’t see us.”

“I suppose that settles it,” Sam said, standing and brushing off her pants. “We’d best get moving.”

Chris paused. “What about Baker’s and Jackson’s bodies? Should we just leave them here? Maybe we should try to bury them or something…”

“Ground’s too cold,” Josh mumbled, “frozen, frozen. Hey, do you wanna build a snowman?”

Seven groans echoed as one.

“Not the time, dude,” Chris complained.

Josh curled in on himself. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to- it just popped in my head, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Ashley told him patiently.

“He’s right, though,” Emily admitted, “the ground is way too frozen to be digging up. Besides, I bet that thing didn’t even leave enough to bury if we tried.”

“I’m going to check,” Mike said, “the rest of you, pack up whatever we can use later. I’ll try hunting in the afternoon so we’re not all starving again.”

Each of them set about picking up the contents of the first aid kits that had somehow ended up all over the room, and rolling up most of the blankets they’d scavenged from the cabin. The rest of the blankets, the smaller ones, were worn like capes, and secured by safety pins.

 “Emily, you were right,” Mike said when he returned from the back room with a small bag, “this is literally all that’s left of them aside from bones.”

“Wait, are you telling me it left some?” Sam asked skeptically.

Mike shrugged. “I guess. I dunno.”

“She wants us to eat it,” Josh announced shakily, “she wants me to eat it. I don’t want to, though, please don’t make me, I don’t want to become a monster!”

“Nobody has to eat it if they don’t want to,” Jess assured him, “but- Mike, why did you grab it?”

Mike opened his mouth to answer, and then stopped, and frowned. “I don’t know? I- I dunno, it just seemed like the thing to do?”

Sam sighed. “Well, the bag’s already ruined. You might as well take it with us, in case you don’t find anything when you go hunting later.”

They left immediately. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok i've almost finished writing this fic. its up to 12k and will prolly get up to at least 13-14k. i know i dont reply to comments, but thats only because the only thing i can ever think of to say is "omg thank" and i dont feel that that expresses my joy and gratefulness at seeing them well enough. that, or theyre questions i refuse to answer for plot reasons!
> 
> <3 thank you so much to everyone whos leaving me kudos and comments, i appreciate each and every one of them!!!


	5. Chapter 5

The eight survivors manage to travel down the side of the mountain without running into a wendigo or getting hurt for three days. This was likely because they silently and unanimously decided to stick close together and hold onto whatever hand or coat sleeve was nearest. This made a few steeper parts of the mountain a little tricky to climb down, especially since Josh was particularly reluctant to let go of Chris’ hand at all, but overall made the trip safer.

Of course, nothing lasts forever.

“Fuck!” Jess yelped, and slipped down a short but steep incline.

“Jess!” Mike shouted, and slid down after her, “are you okay!?”

She waved him off. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve had worse. I’m not even scraped up. I just- I guess I didn’t see a patch of ice or gravel or something. I wasn’t paying attention.”

Wolfie barked.

Mike somehow got the feeling that Wolfie was being sarcastic, and forced Jess to meet his gaze. Her eyes were a little foggy, and she seemed to be having trouble focusing on any one thing.

“Jess, how long have you been having trouble seeing things?” he asked softly.

“What?” she replied, “I dunno, it’s just sun blindness or something. I looked at the snow too long. That’s a thing, you know.”

“I know, but there’s hardly any snow anymore. Jess, did this start after…”

“Don’t say it.”

He ground his teeth. “Alright. But if it gets worse, you say something immediately, alright?”

“Alright,” she agreed softly.

Mike turned to look up at the other six. “Guys, she’s alright! And I think I see a path, so c’mon down. It’s a pretty easy slide, I swear.”

Wolfie was the first to brave the short incline, and snuffled around Jess’ feet when he landed.

“I think Wolfie likes me more than you, now,” Jess joked.

Mike didn’t smile. “No, he knows you’re going to need help seeing what’s beneath your feet.”

Jess didn’t reply, because the other six had slid down after them. Josh wasn’t happy about it, and Chris and Ashley were taking a moment to calm him back down before they moved on.

Sam pulled Mike aside while everyone else was distracted. “You only brought back one rabbit last night.”

“I know, I’m trying, alright?”

“No, look…” She shook her head. “I didn’t mean to sound like I was attacking you. I was telling you that maybe two pairs of eyes will be better than one. I want to go with you this afternoon when you go hunting.”

Mike frowned. “You passed on eating last night, though. How are you going to keep up with me if you’re hungry?”

“I- well, I don’t want to, but I think I should, um…” Sam looked away and waved at the bag tied to his hip.

“Oh,” he said, and then, “Oh!”

She snorted.

“Look, give me one more day,” he pleaded, “If I don’t come back with enough tonight, you can come with me tomorrow, alright?”

Sam frowned at him. “Why?”

Mike shook his head. “I have a feeling that eating even as much as me and Chris and Jess did, its making more of an impact than we first thought it would. Jess should have seen that rock she tripped on. Chris’s ankles are showing under his pants. My skin is starting to feel really fucking weird. I’m just being cautious, okay?”

She looked at him, and examined his face. “You do seem a little… grayer. Like, it’s not super noticeable, but now that you’ve said something…”

“Please keep it quiet,” he begged softly, “I really do not want anyone freaking out. I just want us all to make it home alive, and if someone freaks out and runs….”

Sam nodded slowly. “…then they’re basically fucked. Yeah, I know. I’ll keep it quiet. I’m still coming with you tomorrow if you don’t catch anything tonight.”

Reluctantly, Mike agreed.

 

Mike returned empty handed that night.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I looked, but… I think they’re getting wise to me.”

Not even Emily berated him.

The puppy pile was even tighter-knit and even quieter than usual that night, as the eight of them suffered quietly together. As if the world itself were apologizing for them going hungry that night, they didn’t hear any wendigo screams at all that night.

They moved slower the next day, and when they made camp at noon to sleep and for Matt to go hunting, Sam stood and joined him without a word.

Josh whined in protest, and Wolfie tilted his head.

Sam looked at the wolf pointedly, and said to Josh, “don’t worry, we’ll be back.”

“Don’t do it,” he pleaded, “Sam, I know you think- but you don’t have to, you don’t!”

She smiled apologetically, and turned away. She felt a little guilty for inflicting a scared and upset Josh upon Chris and Ashley once more, but they had practically signed themselves up to be his keeper, so she tried not to worry about it too much.

“Are you sure about this, Sam?” Mike asked when they were far enough away from the camp.

She nodded, determined. “Yes, I am.”

 Slowly, reluctantly, Mike untied the bag from his hip and removed a small slice of meat. It was innocuous, really. It looked like a battered piece of charred steak- Mike must have cooked it when he went out hunting one day. If she didn’t know better, she would have never guessed it was people.

She swallowed nervously, and plucked it from his hand and scarfed it down before she could really think about it.

Almost immediately, she felt better, though that was likely from the hunger subsiding.

“Alright, let’s go,” she said, stalking ahead.

Mike gave her a quick rundown on how he’d been catching what little he had managed to catch, eying her warily all the while, before the two of them set out into the woods.

They returned triumphant with a record catch of four white rabbits.

 

The relief didn’t last. They were still only a third of the way down the mountain, and either Wolfie or Josh and Mike were scaring off what little wildlife they could find.

Just a day after Sam gave in, Josh had a particularly bad episode, and attacked anyone who touched him. Chris, Sam, and Mike were able to subdue him and talk him down eventually, but not before he knocked Ashley away like a ragdoll.

“Give me a piece,” she demanded of Mike after things had calmed down again.

Mike gave her a surprised look. “What?”

She pointed to his hip bag. “I’m not going to get knocked around helping Josh again. You five who have- yes, I know Sam did- are at least twice as strong as you were before. I already swore to myself and Chris and Josh that I’d help Josh, but I can’t do it to the best of my ability if I’m not on par with him. Give. Me. A. Piece.”

Mike, slightly stunned by her speech, handed over the bag with little hesitation.

Ashley plucked a slice from the bag without looking, and ate it as though it were jerky. She gave the bag back to Mike, and walked back to Josh and Chris. She plopped down at Josh’s side, and started talking about the Lion King to cheer him up.

“Jesus, she’s a little scary, isn’t she?” Matt whispered to Mike.

“Yeah. I had no idea,” Mike agreed. “Did you?”

Matt shook his head. “None at all!”

 

Matt and Emily being the only two to not haven eaten part of Baker or Jackson- Mike refused to say who the wendigo had left- made feeding them all a lot easier. Josh swore it was the wendigo spirits possessing them that made them less hungry, but that sounded off to both Ashley and Emily, though they didn’t confide in one another for quite a while.

Eventually, though, Ashley said something over the fire, “I don’t think the Wendigoes are spirits. Why aren’t we looking like them already?”

“Hannah only took three or so days to turn completely,” Sam added softly, “she had a diary in the mines, and I read it. Josh- he ate- well, that was nearly a week ago. He’s bonkers, but no more-so than he was after the prank.”

“So, what? It’s not spirits, then. Is it still a curse or is it something in the water up here?” Emily demanded.

Chris frowned. “But we saw those fiery ghost-looking things fly from the bodies when we burned them.”

“Maybe they released some sort of flammable gas when they died?” Jess asked, “I may not have paid much attention is science, but I remember that some animals and plants do that. Maybe that’s what it was?”

“Someone would have to hunt one down, kill it without ruining the body, and then dissect it,” Emily said, “if they wanted to find that out. I don’t think any of us are willing to do that to test this theory.”

“Still, none of us are transforming radically,” Mike argued, “I mean, sure, we are a little, but we’re not giant murderous skeletal beasts.”

Emily eyed the six that had eaten critically.

Josh’s face was halfway split open, and his eye was blind aside from movement. Mike’s skin was tinged a sickly grey. Both of Jessica’s eyes were glazed over, and she had to rely on Wolfie to move around without tripping. Chris was noticeably taller and longer limbed. Ashley’s nails had grown, and she had to be gentle when touching anyone to not claw them open. Sam looked the most normal, but when she smiled or laughed at a rare joke, her teeth were a lot sharper than seemed normal, and she kept biting her lip hard enough to bleed.

Matt shifted uncomfortably. “Remember what Josh said about the more you eat, the faster you turn?”

“He also said Hannah said that,” Chris pointed out, then turned to Josh, “No offense, bro.”

“None taken. I’m fucking crazy, remember?” Josh replied with a weak grin.

“Maybe…” Ashley said slowly, “maybe wendigoes can speak to each other?”

The eight of them exchanged nervous looks.

Emily was the first to recover. “Let’s stop there and quit thinking about that, otherwise I won’t be able to sleep ever again.”

“Alright, but clearly it’s true. The thing about eating more, I mean. Look at Josh- sorry, bro- and then look at Ashley. She’s had the smallest amount of all of us so far, right?” Chris asked.

Ashley had spent her downtime carving at a fat piece of wood. Initially, she had done so with a pocketknife she had filched from Matt, and once her nails grew strong and sharp, with those.

“It’s been two days since I’ve eaten, and I did eat the least,” she admitted, “I think. Either me, or Sam.”

Sam bared her teeth, which were far sharper than they should have been.

“And, aside from various weird and awful side effects,” Mike continued, waving at his own skin and Jess’ eyes, “we’ve been a lot less hungry.”

“Which is kind of weird, actually,” Chris interrupted, “because- don’t ask, it was for a project- when I did research on wendigoes when I was twelve, it was usually implied that they were like, I dunno, permanently hungry. And we’re not.”

“That is kinda weird,” Ashley agreed.

“Either way,” Emily said, “I’m still not eating any. Nothing you freaks say will change my mind.”

Matt, who, over the course of the three weeks, had staunchly agreed with her, said nothing. Instead, he stared at the fire, contemplating.

 

The next day, when they started walking again, Matt pulled Emily aside.

“Emily, I know you don’t want to hear this, but please let me say what I need to before you protest,” he began.

She crossed her arms sourly. “I’m listening.”

“I think we should- we should eat.”

She puffed up and opened her mouth to shout at him, and he hurried to explain.

“No, look, I know it’s disgusting and I feel sick for even contemplating it. But what if, when we finally get to civilization, someone questions why you and I are the only ones who are underweight and normal-looking? What will happen to our friends- they’re still our friends, even Josh. I know Mike threatened to shoot you, and I know you can barely stand Ashley and Jess, but they’ve also put up with your pettiness and meanness. They’re your friends, alright?”

She stared at her feet, flushed with shame. “Alright, so they’re my friends. What of it?”

“What I’m trying to get at,” Matt continued, “is what happens if someone decides something is fishy with them? What if they come to investigate the mountain? How many people will die? What if they take our friends away and turn them into lab rats?”

“Shit, Matt,” Emily whispered.

He grimaced. “That’s what I mean by we should eat, too. That way, like, we’re all uniformly fucked up looking, and the authorities are more likely to assume it was just something in the water, you know?”

“Alright, you’ve made your point.” She shuddered. “We’ll do it tonight. I hate you for this, by the way.”

“I’m sorry.”

That night, they repeated their arguments for joining their friends in their half-wendigo state.

“Twenty-six days,” Jess says, and whistles. “Honestly, props to you two for holding out so long. I wouldn’t have been able to. Hell, I didn’t.”

Mike gave them the last two chunks of meat from the bag, and then threw it on the fire.

“Good job getting rid of the evidence,” Chris joked.

“Thanks,” Mike replied dryly.

“Tell me this is rabbit,” Emily begged. “I know it’s not, but tell me it is anyway.”

Sam obeyed. “That’s rabbit. Caught it myself just today.”

Emily flashed her a grateful smile, and nearly swallowed the meat in one bite in her haste. Matt followed suit.

“That’s all of us,” Ashley said softly.

That night was the quietest, and solemnest. 


	6. Chapter 6

Four hungry days passed as they slowly continued down the mountain. Even with the upgraded constitution their collective crime against humanity gave them, four days was a long time for eight teenagers to go without eating anything at all.

The eight of them were also bickering far more than they ever had. Nobody was quite sure if it was from hunger, or a side effect of becoming partial wendigoes.

And then Sam and Mike got extremely lucky.

“Guys!” Sam shouted excitedly as she barreled into the clearing they were camping in for the day, “guys, come look at this! You won’t believe what me and Mike found!”

“What did you find?” Chris asked, coaxing Josh to stand.

Sam grinned. “You’re not going to believe it. You just have to see!”

So, slowly, reluctantly, the six of them stood and followed Sam, who led the way with a bounce in her step and wide grin that showed off her incredibly sharp, mutated teeth.

Twenty minutes later, they entered a second small clearing. A small shed-like house stood in the center, and was surrounded by loose pieces of scrap metal, cold fire pits, and several doghouses. The walls and doors of the house seemed to be made of soldered sheets of metal doors, likely from the sanatorium.

Mike stood in the doorway, munching on an MRE, with several more at his feet.

In a flash, there was a mad scramble.

“Easy, easy!” Mike cried, “There’s more than enough for everyone!”

Once everyone had eaten, they calmed down again. Even Josh seemed a little less unbalanced, and Emily was smiling for the first time in days.

“This isn’t even all of it,” Sam told them, and ushered them into the house.

It was cramped, with eight people and a wolf squeezed inside, but it managed to be comforting, somehow. There weren’t any decorations, and only a single bed, a bookshelf, a single desk, and a single chair.

The bookshelf drew the most attention, however. The two lowest shelves had boxes and boxes of MREs. The shelf above that had a flamethrower, and the two above that had three shotguns and several large boxes of ammunition.

Chris did a dumb little dance. “Fucking jackpot!”

Josh watched him, amused for the first time since he’d been found in the mines.

“Holy shit, we’re going to live,” Emily breathed, and then shook Matt violently in her excitement, “we’re going to live!”

Matt said nothing, but picked up one of the shotguns once Emily let go of his shoulders.

The others took that as their cue, and the weapons were passed around. Chris claimed the flamethrower, and Sam and Emily claimed the two other shotguns.

Matt looked at Jess. “Do you want a shotgun?”

She waved him away. “I’m more likely to shoot one of you than a wendigo, to be honest. I can’t see anything but movement anymore, anyway.”

Mike frowned at her. “You said you’d say something if it got worse!”

“And I did,” she retorted, “just now.”

Josh snickered, which set both Ashley and Chris off.

Mike threw his hands into the air with a loud grumble and wandered off to sulk in a corner. Wolfie joined him shortly after, shoving his head under Mike’s arm and crawling into his lap as though he were a Chihuahua and not a wolf.

Before night fell, Chris went outside and lit the fire pits with his flamethrower.

“Is anyone else more nervous about fire than they used to be?” he asked when he came back inside.

The general consensus was “yes.”

The next morning, they decided that, although the little shed-like house was nice, they needed to quit wasting time and get back home. The MREs and the ammunition was spread throughout several bags, so that if one were lost, there would still be enough to go around. 

Ashley had found an empty leather notebook and several pens and pencils, and took those with her. She had decided that she was going to document what they discovered and hypothesized about the wendigoes. And anyway, it’s not like that the stranger was going to need it anymore, anyway, right?

Miraculously their stroke of luck held up. When they started to walk again, they found a small pickup truck on a dirt road just a few minutes from the house. Ashley took the driver’s seat, and Josh and Jess squeezed into the passenger seat together. The rest were stuck sitting in the bed of the truck. Chris insisted upon keeping the back window open so he could talk to Josh.

 

The ride to the base of the mountain was much easier, though they were stuck on the winding dirt roads. Driving down the mountain unfortunately took longer than walking due to this, and they spent one last night on the mountain.

“I can see the main road from here,” Matt exclaimed, pointing, “can’t we just bust ass and get the fuck off of this mountain?”

“Do you _want_ the wendigoes after us?” Emily demanded.

Mike yanked Matt back down. “Sit down and shut up. We don’t know how far down this mountain they’re willing to go, and none of us want to attract them.”

That was the moment in which their streak of luck ran out.

An ungodly screech echoed through the dark forest, but a voice rang out alongside it: _“Come home,”_ it said, _“Come home or I will drag you home…”_

Josh whimpered. “That’s her, that’s Hannah!”

Sam shook her head. “It’s not. That sounds nothing like her.”

“It’s the- the alpha one! What did that guy call it?” Chris asked, looking at Ashley.

She furrowed her brows. “I think- I think his journal called it the Makkapitew? I mean, it would make sense if it were, since all wendigoes can imitate people, and since this was the first, maybe it’s the smartest, too?”

“Nobody do anything,” Jess decided. “We’re parking our asses right here, and we’re leaving in the morning.”

A second screech made them all flinch. _“COME HOME COME HOME COME HOME!”_

“She’s mad, she’s so mad,” Josh muttered, rocking back and forth between Chris and Ashley, “I’m sorry, Hannah, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“We’re going home alright,” Sam said, determined, “home to our families. Home to our pets. Home to the rest of our friends. This isn’t our home.”

The rest of them started throwing out names of people and pets they needed to go home to:

Emily: “Winston, my wonderful grumpy puppy. He’s probably killed so many pairs of my shoes by now!”

Ashley: “Fizgig, the whiny old lady kitty that she is. I’ve got to go home for her.”

Matt: “The team.”

Mike: “my older sister, and my obnoxious little brothers.”

Jess: “Mom and dad.”

Chris: “Neo and Mister!”

And lastly, Josh, looking directly at Chris and Ashley: “you guys. Wherever you guys are, that’s home.”

Flushing, Chris gently knocked shoulders with him. “Damn right, bro.”

Ashley draped herself across both of their laps. “You’re both disgustingly sweet!”

“All three of you are gross,” Emily muttered, but grinned to show she didn’t mean it.

The Makkapitew screamed louder, as though it could tell none of them were listening to it. No words followed after that third incredibly angry scream.

The teens’ forced good humor failed them, and they fell silent, huddling as close to the fire as they could without burning themselves. All three of the shotguns were aimed outward, and Chris gripped his flamethrower nozzle, prepared to spit fire in a second.

More screams echoed through the forest, closer now.

“Shit,” Sam whispered, “I think it’s going to try to follow through in its threat.”

“Josh, Jess, Ash, get under the car,” Mike ordered, “Chris, get in the bed of the truck. Sam, Em, Matt, spread out. I’ll sit on the roof of the truck, since I’ve got a rifle. Go!”

They scrambled to their positions with no arguments- there wasn’t time.

A wendigo darted into the clearing just as Jess, Ashley, and Josh stilled underneath the truck.

Chris let a flame lick forward, catching its arm and chest. It screamed, and Matt finished it off with two shots to the most scorched part of its chest. A ghostly image flew away into the night.

“How many more do you think there are?” Emily asked fearfully.

“There were fifteen miners that survived,” Ashley answered from underneath the truck, “three were killed in the lodge explosion.”

“I probably killed a few when I blew up the sanatorium,” Mike added. “Let’s say four? So that makes seven dead.”

“Eight to go,” Matt replied grimly. “Let’s hope Hannah doesn’t send all of them after us.”

A second and a third wendigo entered the clearing, just out of range of Chris’ flamethrower.

Mike squared up and barked, “Hey!”

Both of the wendigoes turned to him, and took a few steps forward.

Chris doused them with fire until they screamed in agony. Then Sam and Emily each took one and unloaded their clips into the wendigoes until they stopped moving.

None of them noticed the fourth until Matt screamed and fell.

Chris spun, mentally prayed that he wouldn’t burn his friend, and held down the trigger on his flamethrower until it grew nearly too hot to handle. The wendigo collapsed on top of Matt, mostly dead, and he made sure it was with a single shot to the head.

He shoved it off of him, but didn’t stand- its claws had gotten his legs, and he was in too much pain to put weight on them just yet.

Silence fell upon them once more, and no more wendigoes attacked them.

Those who were armed stayed alert until dawn. When their collective adrenaline rush wore off, they collapsed into a pile in the bed of the truck, and fell asleep almost instantly.

“Jesus,” Ashley said as she started the car, “god, we almost died. Is Matt going to be okay, you think?”

“Well, if Josh described it accurately, probably. There’s three pretty deep cuts, but they don’t seem to have hit any major tendons. One might have skimmed a muscle, so it’s probably going to hurt like a bitch, but…” Jess shrugged. “Matt’s had worse injuries from football.”

“They were amazing,” Josh said breathlessly, “I mean like, you saw Chris being all macho, and Emily and Sam didn’t even hesitate! If that had been a movie scene, it would have been fucking incredible!”

Ashley and Jess smiled despite themselves.

“You seem to be feeling better, at least,” Ashley said lightly, and gently bumped shoulders with him. “That’s good! I’ve been worried sick about you.”

“I’m sorry-”

She cut him off. “Don’t apologize. You’re my friend. I don’t enjoy worrying over you, but it’s a necessary part of being friends. Don’t ever feel bad for making me worry, okay?”

Josh stared at her in concern for a moment. “…okay. That definitely sounds fake, but okay.”

Jess dissolved into giggles.

Josh grinned.

“You’re a jerk, you know that?” Ashley complained, “you’re lucky I love you, otherwise I’d hit you. Jerk.”

He bumped her shoulder back. “Punk.”

“Don’t quote Captain America at me!” she protested.

They bickered the entire rest of the way to the main road.

 

Ashley parked the truck on the side of the black asphalt road, got out, and kissed the hot ground once. Then she stood, helped Josh out of the car, and set about waking up their friends.

“We’re safe,” she said, crying, “we’re safe, we’re off the mountain, we’re safe!”

Chris hugged her and Josh tightly. “We made it. We all made it!”

Mike climbed into the cabin of the truck and kissed Jessica soundly.

Emily gingerly hugged Matt, and then Sam.

“I can’t believe it,” she admitted, “I was so sure we’d starve. And then that we’d all turn into monsters, and then that we’d be killed by those things. But we actually made it.”

“Let’s drive until we run out of gas or run into a town,” Sam suggested. “God, I can’t wait to take a hot bath.”

“A hot bath, and then sleeping as long as I possibly can,” Matt agreed.

A cheer rose.

MRES were passed around, and they stashed the weapons in a hollow tree across the road from the mountain- nobody wanted to step foot on the property again just yet- since none of them had weapons licenses or the papers for the guns.

Just a few miles down the road, they came upon a town. It was a small one, and the police station was easily found. Sam, being the most normal-looking of them left, volunteered to go in and ask them to call their parents.

The officers, once they realized Sam was not alone and the others were outside in the truck, were very quick to call their parents and the media, to announce that they had been found. Their families arrived within hours, and it was an extremely emotional scene with lots of hugging and crying and multiple repetitions of “I thought I’d never see you again!”

By silent agreement, the eight survivors insisted upon sticking together, and the Washingtons offered to host them and their families for a few days. Their offer was taken up after only minimal fuss.

Matt’s and Jess’s family tried to get them to visit a hospital, but they declined. The station had called in the local doctor, and he had stitched up Jess’s chest and Matt’s leg. He had no diagnosis for Josh’s face, but eventually said that it looked like it had done it on its own, and wasn’t infected, so there was nothing he could do.

“Look, guys,” Josh finally said, “we’re tired. We’re hurt. We’re really freaking gross. We all just want hot baths and a blanket fort to sleep under. The doc said that- aside from the obvious, like my face- we’re fine.”

So, their families finally gave in, and they went home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just the epilogue now!!


	7. Epilogue

On the sixth month anniversary of their return to civilization, the eight survivors were gathered at Sam’s house for their weekly get-together. It had been an accidental tradition, and they rotated houses every week.

It had been a long six months. Josh had gone back on his meds, Ashley had started a regiment of anxiety meds, Jess still couldn’t see anything but movement and got Wolfie registered as a service dog so that she could navigate the world at large, Matt had been kicked from the team- his coach thought he was taking drugs to cope- due to his sudden increase in stamina and agility, Sam and Mike had taken up boxing as a hobby and sparred frequently enough that they always had bruises, Emily was unhealthily thin and gaunt no matter how much she ate, and Chris had finally come out as bisexual and polyamorous.

They had shared problems still. None of them could sleep easily at night, nor did any psychiatrist believe them when they explained the events, and they all still looked like they were in the beginning stages of turning into a wendigo.

“Is it bad of me,” Sam asked, staring into the bottom of her soda can, “that I feel kind of bored?”

Emily snorted. “Bad? Maybe. But honestly, you’re not the only one. Everything feels like it’s moving so slowly, and so quickly at the same time. Nothing feels real anymore.”

“I know what you mean,” Josh agreed. He had taken to wearing a surgical mask to hide his face.

Someone knocked on the door.

The eight of them froze.

“My parents are out on a date night,” Sam said lowly, “and nobody’s supposed to have been coming over tonight.”

“Well, go answer it,” Jess said, trying to relax. “It’s probably nothing, right?”

Wolfie stared at the door with his ears alert, but was showing no sign of aggression.

Reluctantly, Sam stood and walked to the door.

“Who is it?” she called.

“FBI. You’re not in trouble, don’t worry,” a feminine voice replied, muffled.

Sam looked at her friends, confused.

“Why is the FBI at your door?” Chris asked, bewildered.

“I have no idea,” she replied, “let’s find out.”

She opened the door.

There were just two agents standing on her porch. One was tall and dark haired, and the other was rather short and redheaded. Both wore dark suits.

“Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully,” the woman said. “May we come in?”

Sam stepped back. “I have friends over, right now.”

“Oh good,” Mulder replied lightly, “that saves us the effort of going to all their houses. We have a proposition for the eight of you. First, though, I would like to request that you don’t shoot the messenger.”

“We’re no happier about this than you are,” Scully added sourly.

An ominous feeling fell over the eight survivors.

“Well, what is it?” Jess demanded.

Mulder produced a stack of letters from his jacket pocket, and started handing them out while Scully explained, “You are being requested that you become Wendigo Hunters for the United States Government. If you choose to do this, you will be paid as a high ranking federal employee, and food and weapons will be supplied to you. Unfortunately, if you do not accept this position, you will be taken to an undisclosed lab so that our scientists may gain an understanding of Wendigoes and prepare a team accordingly.”

“What the fuck!?”

“We’re not going to be fucking lab rats!”

“They can’t do that!”

“That has to be illegal!”

Scully held up a hand, and they fell sullenly silent. “I do not agree with forcing you to go back to Blackwood Mountain after what you eight have been through. Mulder and I fought with our superiors about this for a long time, and we were able to get you as good as a deal we could have possibly gotten you.”

“Food and weapons of your choice will be supplied to you,” Mulder explained, “and you will be working directly under Scully and I. Our superiors were more than happy to give us that, actually. Do you think it’s because we’ve pissed them off so many times over the years, Scully?”

She ignored his question. “If you decline, we’ll wait as long as we can afford to, to give you time to run. However, I would like to warn you that being on the run is incredibly stressful, and generally not worth the trouble. I’ve done it.”

Sam frowned at the letter Mulder had given her. “Is this legal?”

Mulder shrugged. “Who knows? You’re a bunch of teenagers. You should know by now that our government isn’t as sparkly clean as it would like to be. They’ve disappeared people before, and covering all of this up won’t be the first time they’ve covered something big up.”

“Fuck it,” Mike said, throwing his letter to the coffee table. “Let’s do it. Weren’t we just complaining that life is boring after all of that?”

“Ah,” Scully said, “the invincibility of youth. I miss that.”

Ashley gnawed on her fingernail for a moment before admitting, “I really don’t know about this, guys. I can’t shoot, I’m useless in a fight. But if you guys go, I can’t let you go alone!”

“I’d be useless too,” Jess added, waving at her eyes.

“I don’t trust myself with a weapon,” Josh said quietly.

Mike frowned. “Well, the five of us can be the strike team, and you three can be support.”

“If we do this,” Emily warned.

Matt sighed. “But would be being on the run be any better than being paid to hunt the things that nearly killed us? I mean, either way there’s a risk of death and injury, but at least we’d be paid.”

Chris pointed at him. “That’s a damn good point.”

“Alright, so me, Ash, and Josh as support,” Jess summarized, “and the five of you as a strike team. Eight fat paychecks between us, and free food.”

“What happens when one of us gets hurt, though?” Ashley asked.

Mulder coughed. “We can get you a crash course in first aid, and immediate access to a rescue helicopter.”

Seven of them exchanged glances, remembering Baker and Jackson’s crew.

“I mean, aside from,” Josh waved his hand, indicating the event he hadn’t witnessed, “it’s not a bad idea. I can get my parents to pay to install Wi-Fi up there, I bet.”

“Oh, god, our parents,” Ashley moaned.

“Can we get away with just not telling them?” Sam asked hopefully.

Josh shook his head. “Not if we want Wi-Fi up there.”

“Worst case scenario, we jailbreak anyone who needs jailbreaking,” Chris joked.

“So, are you in, or should we lie and say we couldn’t find any of you?” Mulder asked,

The eight of them exchanged quick glances.

“We’re in.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... how would everyone feel about a sequel?


End file.
